Please explain Tempshift Plates

[BlueLance]

Heya all, I am looking for an explanation on how tempshift plates work, I understand they affect the tiles around them, but other than that I honestly do not know what the pros/cons are of using them. 

If someone could give an example of where having one makes a system better that would also be handy for referencing.

[Capsup]

The guy on Reddit made this debug image a couple of days ago. It explains Tempshift plates perfectly:

This is all in a vacuum with magma at the bottom.

I guess the easy way to think about tempshift plates is basically: where we have radiant pipes, tempshift plates are basically radiant tiles that go in the background. That's all there is to them. They interact with elements in the 8 tiles around them, just like tiles do. The only exception is that unlike tiles, they do not conduct temperature through other tempshift plates.

I think that's a short overview of tempshift plates. You might have known all of that already, but they're not really much more complicated than that. Basically, they increase a material's conductivity, and that's about it.

[psusi]

interesting... I didn't know they wouldn't share heat with each other.  The description in game says they can also be used to slow heat transfer if made of insulators.  How does that work?  Do they exchange heat with the 8 tiles around them, and prevent those tiles from exchanging heat with each other directly?

[Sevio]

Another way to think about them is as a building that occupies a 3x3 area but only takes a 1x1 free area to build.

Buildings will conduct temperatures with elements (liquids, gases and solids) that occupy their space. So that's why two tempshift plates will only influence each other if there is an element (liquid, gas or solid such as a tile) they can both reach.

Most of the builds in my signature make extensive use of tempshift plates, they accelerate the heat transfer between a hot and cold place to make them equal faster. If you use a good tempshift plate material like diamond, they can transfer heat faster from magma through doors to a hot plate than just having the magma, door and hot plate directly adjacent.

[Skrivener]

38 minutes ago, psusi said:

interesting... I didn't know they wouldn't share heat with each other.  The description in game says they can also be used to slow heat transfer if made of insulators.  How does that work?  Do they exchange heat with the 8 tiles around them, and prevent those tiles from exchanging heat with each other directly?

I don't know how it works exactly, but it does seem to work. I use abyssalite plates where I have doors that would otherwise leak heat.

[ShadowOfALegend]

17 hours ago, Skrivener said:

I don't know how it works exactly, but it does seem to work. I use abyssalite plates where I have doors that would otherwise leak heat.

in the case for abyssalite, it buffers heat away from that area